Life Fast, Die Young! – Punk and...

Life Fast, Die Young! – Punk and the Tacheles

In Berlin you can see many huge graffiti artworks, that cover whole house fronts. Rising up to the sky in bright colours, but sometimes also in classical black and white, but nevertheless, beautiful.

ROA: Tote Tiere

They accompany you on your way to your party destination. In a way, they celebrate with you and lead you back on your way home. Maybe they will also be the only thing you’ll remember from that night.

Also Friedrichhain is full of them, especially at „Warschauers“, where all the Punks celebrate.

Graffiti art is usually underground art, but as you might have noticed, you can actually find it about everywhere in Berlin. But someday, all of this beauty will be gone, vanished by time and rain. But that is what street art is about, it’s temporary, and therefore, even more precious thanpermanent art.

So these graffiti have “no future”, you could state. This thought to have “no future” has also always accompanied the Punk subculture, to not have a home, to not stay anywhere for longer, to not be needed for anything and to therefore remain completely useless for society. But is that really true? They don’t have a future? – No way, never! Only because they and maybe you too are not, what society tells you, you’re definitely not worthless! Show your true colours! Be authentic and feel free to do what you feel like. The “No Future” thought is quite ironic anyway, like everything in Punk. You should see it like that: The conformists just want to criticise you for your freedom, because that’s what they want to have, too!

Tacheles Inside

There was also a street art scene at Oranienburger Straße in Berlin Mitte, which the Tacheles was the epicentre of, for over twenty years, until it’s closing in 2012. What had been a former warehouse, had hosted many artists, that covered the inside completely with graffiti and paintings. In a way it was DIY decoration, that stood for independence and was nonconformist.

Parts of this House still exist, like a relic of old times. You could also see it as a Museum now, where you can still walk by and take some photos, knowing about it’s mysterious interior.

But remember: when something dies, something new will rise from the ashes. So for three years there was no future for the Tacheles, until the opening of your “Klassenfeind Gallery”. So, come by and get the Tacheles experience in our Tacheles room, where the spirit still lives on.